Day 4 Presentation Comments and Final Remarks

I liked Shelby’s use of the mandala as an image for working with Pale Fire, as the idea of concentrically nested shapes fits well with the multiple levels of interpretation of the text. It seems that with Pale Fire, each time a new level of understanding is uncovered, many additional pathways open up which in turn lead to deeper levels of comprehension. This is similar to the concept of the mandala in which an individual may enter inside the realm of one shape, but there will still be innumerably more shapes that have yet to be penetrated. In Pale Fire, there is no center of the mandala, as the concentric shapes and levels of understanding continue on into infinity. Perhaps this is why Nabokov preferred the image of the spiral to that of the circle, as a circle is limited – eventually one will end up where he or she started. A spiral, on the other hand, is endless, and even though one’s path may pass near a previously visited locale, no one place is ever visited twice. It seems that the mandala, then, can be interpreted as another representation of the spiral, a fractal pattern in which one shape, one pathway, ultimately leads to a multitude of others. This is part of the beauty with Pale Fire, as no matter how closely the text is read, there will always be more discoveries to make.

As a final note, I just like to again thank Dr. Sexson and all of my classmates for making this seminar such a challenging and rewarding experience. This class has shown me that “reading in” to a text is really all we can do, and that making connections to other works and our own life experiences is ultimately what makes the reading of difficult works so enjoyable. I believe that this class has given me a greater ability to think critically about things that at first may seem to be beside the point. It is, after all, the details that have the greatest ability to influence us and to the shape our way of thinking. Thanks again everyone for a great semester!

Day 3 Presentation Comments

I thought that Morgan’s alphabet book was quite an ingenious and fitting idea for a project on Pale Fire. It’s obvious that Nabokov sees significance in words and letters, judging by all of the alphabetized names and wordplay in Pale Fire. It also seems like many of the letters are in fact the first names of characters in the novel, almost as if Nabokov wanted to cover as many of the letters as possible. I wouldn’t put such intentions past a literary genius. If I remember right, the class was having trouble coming up with “I” words for you alphabet book. I’ve got one suggestion, although it is not a name specific to Pale Fire: you could use “infinite,” as the levels of reading the novel seem to be unlimited, and, as Dustin discussed, the human experience is one of multiple infinities. The word infinite is used in consecutive lines in the poem (122 and 123) as well. Also, you could use “immortality,” as immortality (especially in its relation to Hazel) is another important theme in the novel.

The connections that Isabel discovered between the Alder tree and Pale Fire were quite interesting as well. Isabel mentioned that green and red dye can be made out of the Alder tree, which is significant because green and red have substantial symbolic meaning in the novel. As Mary McCarthy points out in her essay, the traditional connotative associations of red and green are reversed in Pale Fire. In the novel, red is the color of salvation and green is the color of evil and pursuit, as Kinbote is saved by all of his supporters wearing red hats that are identical to his while two of Kinbote’s enemy’s, the extremist leader Uzumondov and the professor Emerald, are always described wearing green. It’s probably not a coincidence then that Nabokov includes Alder trees in the novel when they supply dyes of the complementary colors of red and green. This juxtaposition of opposites seems to occur often in Pale Fire, and the red vs. green idea can be connected to the Kinbote vs. Shade contrast – a topic large enough for its own entire paper.

Maria’s discovery as to the origin of Kinbote’s persona is fascinating. It was interesting to learn that several of Kinbote’s characteristics are identical to those of the four Scandinavian kings during the time that Nabokov wrote Pale Fire. Nabokov must have certainly been familiar with the Scandinavian kings at the time, and these connections with Kinbote’s description cannot be a coincidence. It’s a little surprising to learn that Nabokov would draw inspiration from actual people, though, as he claimed in one of his written interviews that none of his characters were “based” off of anyone in particular in real life. This specific instance, however, seems to be a little different. It is not so much that Nabokov created Kinbote specifically as a result of being inspired by the kings, but rather the character Kinbote was already conceived and Nabokov added in some of the traits of the current kings to reward the astute reader. This is yet another example of Nabokov hiding tiny gems in the text for the pleasure of his followers.

I thought Dustin’s discussion on the “formalism” method of criticism was especially appropriate for Pale Fire. Kinbote definitely follows this formalist model, as he gives the form of Zembla to Shade’s poem even though Shade had no intentions of involving the distant northern land in his poem. Kinbote’s criticism is valid nonetheless, as the poem itself is more important than Shade’s thoughts on it, even though Shade is the creator. It is what each individual reader in the audience sees in the poem that is important, and Kinbote happens to see references to his homeland all throughout the poem. Even though it is possible to take this type of commentary a little too far, I think Dustin’s formalist method is legitimate, as it is the audience that a work is ultimately trying to involve. The audience may or may not have the same interpretation as the author or poet, but what ultimately matters is that readers formulate their own connections to the text and draw from it a unique interpretation.

Day 2 presentation comments

I thought Nels did a great job in his presentation of applying science to the texts that we have read throughout the class. His interpretation of the complicated chemical reactions that synthesize organic molecules is not unlike that of an artist who creates meaning out of the seemingly random characteristics of nature. In both cases, the scientist/artist takes something that is originally meaningless and produces a work of beauty. And without both the artist and the scientist, we as humans would be lost in the chaos of our surroundings.

Ashley’s presentation was exemplary in all regards, and one aspect that I found quite interesting was the alternate interpretation of Hazel’s message in the barn. As we had previously discussed in class, the jumbled message repeats the word “atalanta” several times, which serves to solidify Hazel’s status as a Vanessa atalanta butterfly after her death. Ashley found another way to read the message that consists of Hazel warning her father not to go to the house of the crazy commentator (Kinbote), as this is the event that leads to Shade’s murder. Indeed, if read aloud the message does sound vaguely like a warning to a father, with words like “pada” (padre or papa), “ata” (ought), “not,” and “ogo” (go). Like almost everything else in Pale Fire, it appears that Hazel’s cryptic message is subject to multiple interpretations.

Bizz and Jenny’s portrait of Shade and Kinbote was outstanding! It was packed with symbolic significance to Pale Fire, and the more I looked at it the more details I caught that were direct references to the text. I liked especially how the center of the painting was a mirror of sorts that reflected Shade and Kinbote. This is not a normal mirror, however, as what is on one side is partially distorted on the other side. For example, Kinbote and Shade have some characteristics in common (such as that they are both interested in literature), but are exact opposites in many other ways (such as that Kinbote is erect and handsome while Shade is hunched over and ugly). Similarly, I thought it fitting that Bizz and Jenny’s painting portrayed a sun on one side and a moon on the other, as the sun and moon are often seen as opposites even though their light is derived from the same source (the sun). This image further establishes the mirror’s status as an agent of both reflection and distortion.

Bizz’s diagram of dyslexia was quite relevant, as I can see similarities between the thought process of a dyslexic and the manner in which we read Pale Fire. In both instances, confusing material is presented to the reader, which ultimately leads to rickety conclusions. It appears that the conclusion reached by the reader the first time can send him or her either way in comprehending the text. If the initial conclusion is close to the “right” one, the reader will get progressively closer with each repetition of the cycle, but if the first conclusion is totally off-base, each new cycle will lead the reader on an ever widening spiral away from the correct interpretation. Thus, whether we like to admit it or not, our reading process of a difficult text is similar to that of a dyslexic in that our initial impressions play an important role in understanding the material.

Jenny’s presentation on the different variations of chess was interesting, and I was excited to learn that there is a type of chess called ultima chess. My paper topic is on Zembla’s role as an ultima thule, so I will have to look up some further information on this variety of chess. Jenny mentioned that in ultima chess, the positions of the white king and queen are reversed. This could in some way be related to Kinbote, the exiled Zemblan king, as he seems to have traits more fitting for a queen than a king (the most obvious being his homosexuality). If this is so, the fact that the white, and not the black, king and queen are reversed is appropriate, as I envision Kinbote as white (clean appearance, religiously pure) and Shade as black (not religious, shades and shadows are dark).

Comments on in-class presentations

In her presentation on Tuesday, Madeleine brought up an interesting point regarding Nabokov’s ideal writer. Nabokov thought that writers should first and foremost be enchanters, followed by teachers and storytellers. This view on the responsibilities of writers is fascinating, as it seems to run counter to the popular argument that all writing should teach a lesson in some form or another. But this point is certainly applicable to Pale Fire, as while readers most certainly learn and make discoveries throughout the text, they are more than anything enchanted by Nabokov’s writing.

Michael’s presentation was very well done, and the complex image of a magnetic chess board on a windowpane was both ingenious and relevant. His theory that readers of Pale Fire are like Kinbote, escaped kings whose moves depend on the opposing action of a higher figure, was something that I had not thought about before. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense – the reader’s relationship to Nabokov is very similar to Kinbote’s relationship to Shade. As readers we are controlled by Nabokov’s moves, but at the same time we, like Kinbote, are left alone to interpret in different manners the text of a great writer.

Breanna’s discussion of spirals as a representation of eternity was fascinating, and it was interesting to learn that Nabokov preferred the image of the spiral to that of the circle. This discussion reminded me of the ancient Anasazi culture of the American southwest, who left numerous images of spirals as pictographs or petroglyphs on rock outcroppings and canyon walls. I have seen petroglyphs of spirals, and I have always been curious as to their meaning. After listening to Breanna’s presentation, I am beginning to think that these messages left by the Anasazi have something to do with the endless twist of time.


As I mentioned in class, the performance of one of Bach’s fugues in Sarah’s presentation made me think of another connection to eternity – this one in relation to music. The counterpoint technique in the fugue utilizes inversion and repetition, which can be interpreted to resemble singing in around. The classic example of singing in around is “Row, row, row your boat,” which will go on without end because each time one group finishes the song, a different group has already started again. In this way, Sarah did a great job of connecting music to the idea of the eternal.

Paper outline and thesis

I plan to write my paper on the subject of Nabokov’s Zembla with regard to how it can be interpreted as an ultima thule. My thesis will be something to the effect of: “Zembla is an ultima thule because it is a northern land beyond the boundaries of the real world as well as a manifestation of V. Botkin’s unattainable goal.” This thesis will naturally yield a paper that is composed of two parts – one part discussing the more literal interpretation the ultima thule and the other part addressing the metaphorical significance of the ultima thule.

In the first section I will deal with some background information regarding the historical use of the term ultima thule in order to establish its connection to the concept of unknown northern lands. From here, I will be able to move on to a discussion of how the specifically northern aspect of the ultima thule relates to Zembla. I will also attempt to bring in some of the other texts from our class in this section, as several connect with the motif of the distant, mysterious north. For example, A.S. Byatt mentions in The Biographer’s Tale how Linnaeus would sometimes report having other-worldly experiences on his long journeys in the Lapland (a region in northern Scandanavia). Additionally, the characters Hilda in The Master Builder and Dr. Stockmann in An Enemy of the People both make their appearances in the plot after returning from a sort of exile in the north. References to these other literary works will hopefully augment my investigation into the importance of Zembla’s northern location.

I will begin the second section of the paper by discussing the Roman poet Virgil, who first used the ultima thule to symbolize an unattainable goal. I plan to connect this metaphorical significance to V. Botkin, the “American scholar of Russian descent” who entertains the impossible aspiration of making his life exciting and relevant. The means by which Botkin pursues this goal is to fabricate for himself an imaginary northern nation, Zembla, of which he (as Charles Kinbote) is the exiled king. I might also address the idea of exile as it relates to Zembla and the ultima thule, as the experience of exile can often lead to the generation of the perpetual, unfulfilled longing to return to one’s homeland. The fictional Kinbote seems to have such nostalgic, fantastically impossible feelings for his native land, and thus the concept of unattainable goals can be connected to Zembla on another level.

To tie everything together at the end of the paper, I will mention the index definition of Zembla (“a distant northern land”). Zembla’s description in the index is relevant because it relates to my two main points proving that Zembla is an ultima thule – the “northern land” is an obvious connection to the ultima thule’s unknown northern location, while “distant” can be applied to the concept of an unreachable goal.

Shades of Grey

In her blog for Tuesday’s class, Shelby described how she woke up with the opening lines of Pale Fire (the poem) stuck in her head. I couldn’t help but connect her experience to a night a few weekends ago when I had a similar encounter with Nabokov’s Pale Fire. It was a very cold night spent in a sleeping bag high in the Pioneer Mountains, and each time I awoke the same three word phase would course through my mind: “shades of grey.” I had done a lot of thinking the previous day about the significance of the characters’ names in Pale Fire, so no doubt this expression that came to me in my frozen daze was a reference to John Shade and his killer Jack Degree (alias de Grey). It seemed novel to me at the time that the names of two of the principle characters in the text could be combined to produce a phrase that is commonly used to represent the middle region between two extremes, or the gradations (Gradus ~ gradations) between two opposites. Of course, Nabokov’s work is full of such word play – an example that immediately comes to mind is the reversals of the syllables in Kinbote to produce Botkin – but this concept of shades of grey appears to permeate Pale Fire in several ways.

First, the various shades of grey can be seen as an analog for how Pale Fire is read and understood, as there are several levels on which to examine the book. Initially, the reader will be inclined to take everything for face value and will see little meaning or richness to the text. This can be symbolized by the darker shades of grey, or toward the black end of the spectrum. But as the reader digs deeper into the subtleties and connections that slowly become apparent, a new world will open up in which a vast expanse of networks and texture is visible. The lighter shades of grey represent this deeper reading of the book in which transparency replaces the murky obscurity of the darker shades. Thus, as readers make discoveries they are, in a process that invokes Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, led out of the darkness and into a lighted realm full of connections and allusions via ascension to higher levels on the ladder of shades, the ladder of grey.

Grey is a color often associated with age and death, and in this sense Pale Fire is packed with smudges of varying shades of grey. The death of Hazel Shade is an event that greatly impacts John Shade, and there are a multitude of references to Hazel throughout the poem. There seem to be shades of Hazel at every turn in the book, and her presence is portrayed as one of quiet omniscience – tirelessly warning her father of his impending fate. Consequently, her more subtle, obscure role in Pale Fire means that her portrayal as a brighter color would be inappropriate; in other words she does indeed exist in shades of grey. Additionally, there are shades of other grey figures in the book that are not strictly characters in Pale Fire. For example, the shadow of Shakespeare falls upon the text in numerous occurrences, the most obvious being that the title of the poem was taken from Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. Also, as Madeleine discussed in class Tuesday, various shades of The Tempest appear throughout the text in great abundance. Shakespeare, a giant in the world of literature and the embodiment of the Elizabethan era, thus serves as a silhouette from the past, a unique shade of grey time that reminds readers of Pale Fire’s fundamental connection and relevance to literature itself.

As stated earlier, shades of grey can also be understood to represent the middle region between two opposites, the gradations between black and white. In Pale Fire, Kinbote and John Shade are the black and white characters – polar opposites that become entwined through one’s obsession and another’s pity. Kinbote is the exile from imaginary Zembla, tall and well groomed but slightly paranoid, while Shade is the homegrown poet from New Wye, homely and unimpressive in appearance but generous and sympathetic in spirit. What, then, are the shades of grey between Kinbote’s black and Shade’s white? Are there other characters in Pale Fire that represent this middle ground between the two opposites? Perhaps Nabokov himself is one of these shades of grey, part delusional Kinbote and part down-to-Earth Shade. This, however, seems unlikely because from what I know of Nabokov, he was much more Shade than Kinbote (there are even parallels between Nabokov’s wife Vera and Shade’s wife Sybil to support this interpretation). At the same time, there is still some of Kinbote in Nabokov, seeing how Nabokov himself experienced exile twice in his life (first with the Bolshevik Revolution and second with Nazi Germany). I suppose that if Nabokov is a shade of grey, he is closer to Shade’s end of the spectrum – a darker shade of white rather than true grey. As far as there being other characters in Pale Fire who represent the middle region of grey, it appears uncertain. Perhaps Sybil can be considered to be a shade of grey seeing how she seems to have two personalities, loathing Kinbote for most of the commentary yet endorsing his publishing of the manuscript towards the end of the book. Of course, this is merely speculation and the subject deserves further consideration. What is clear, however, is that Pale Fire is not purely black and white; rather it exists in the more subtle shades of grey. And it is these shades that make reading Nabokov’s work such a rich, rewarding, and enlightening experience.

Not text, but texture

Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream
But topsy-turvical coincidence,
Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense.
Yes! It sufficed that I in life could find
Some kind of link-and-bobolink, some kind
Of correlated pattern in the game,
Plexed artistry, and something of the same
Pleasure in it as they who played it found.

These lines (808-815) of the poem Pale Fire appear to be a joyous epiphany that struck John Shade after he realized that his white fountain image did not correspond to the woman’s vision when she had a heart attack. At first, Shade is disappointed that the white fountain was actually a white mountain, and that the word “fountain” was a misprint in the article. But he soon realizes that it is exactly this coincidence – the twist of fate that he should read an article with a misprint about a fountain that corresponds so closely to his own experience during a seizure – that demonstrates the web of connection in the world. In Shade’s words, such unlikely convergences, even though the convergence was not of the nature for which he was originally hoping, prove that there exists a “web of sense.” He seems to take great satisfaction from this revelation, seeing “something of the same pleasure in it as they who played it found.” In this way, Shade has come to appreciate the architecture of the universe in the same manner that a painter would value the hidden subtleties and connections present in his painting. These last lines of the stanza are intriguing on another level, as they appear to be suggesting that there is some greater power that can design the “web” of the universe and that can play with different elements to reach a desired structure. Judging from the rest of the poem and the commentary, Shade is not a religious person, although he most definitely contemplates such religion-related quandaries as life after death. Perhaps this is another instance of Shade addressing the issue of religion, in which he acknowledges that there is some sort of “player” that controls the “correlated pattern in the game.”

Finally, it is the first line of this stanza (808) that appears to have the most relevance to the concept of Shade understanding the essence of things. He realizes that his attempt to directly make sense of the world (the failed white fountain escapade) did not turn up any concrete, straightforward answers as a book or encyclopedia might provide. But through the coincidence of the fountain-mountain misprint, Shade was made privy to a more nebulous feeling of the universe – in other words he detected its texture. It is as if direct confrontation with the world to determine its essence will leave one empty-handed, as there is no individual text that provides a summary. On the other hand, those who heed the signs of apparently trivial coincidences and events – matters that seem to be beside the point – will be rewarded with an understanding of texture and the rough web of connection. Thus, Shade takes a misprint that at first seems only to deter his understanding of the nature of things, and uses it to discern “not text, but texture” in his surroundings.